Bob MacIntyre ‘scared’ of catching Covid as he makes return in US

Scot felt uncomfortable en route to Memphis for this week’s WGC

As he builds up towards the USPGA, Bob McIntyre believes that competing on the US Tour will give him a better chance of moving up the rankings than had he remained at home and playing in the UK Swing. Picture: SNS

He definitely wasn’t wearing blue suede shoes but, in the words of Marc Cohn’s hit song, Bob MacIntyre did indeed board a plane that touched down in the land of the Delta Blues to find himself Walking in Memphis this week.

The 23-year-old hadn’t expected to be lining up in the $10.5 million 
WGC-FedEx St Jude Invitational, which starts tomorrow at TPC Southwind in the Tennessee city, when he came out of lockdown in Oban to head to Los Angeles to quarantine for 14 days.

At best, he thought he might get an invitation for this week’s regular PGA Tour event, the Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mountain Club, en route from LA to San Francisco for next week’s US PGA Championship, the opening major of a muddled up season.

However, MacIntyre is delighted to have been handed a “bit of a bonus” – he was helped by prolific WGC winner Tiger Woods opting to sit it out this week – by finding himself playing his first event since the Qatar 
Masters in early March in the company of Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Bryson 
DeChambeau.

“It is a huge opportunity,” admitted last year’s European Tour Rookie of the Year of playing in his third WGC, having been blooded on the biggest stages in the game outside majors in the HSBC Champions in China in October before also teeing up in the Mexico Championship in February.

“But the main thing is being back out playing competitive golf. I’ve not played since Qatar and I don’t even know how long ago that was. So it will be good to get four rounds under my belt before the US PGA.”

That event at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco will be MacIntyre’s first major in the US, having secured his spot through finishing 11th in last season’s Race to Dubai on the back of seven top-ten finishes. He is also now exempt for the rescheduled US Open at Winged Foot in 
September.

“With everything that has happened this season due to what has been going on in the world, I didn’t feel I could gain as much from starting back in the UK Swing events than coming out here,” said the left-hander of heading to the US as opposed to returning to action in last week’s Betfred British Masters at Close House, near Newcastle.

“I don’t mean that financially as the main thing at the moment is me getting to that next level in golf. If I’d played in the UK events and won, I’d have started rising up the rankings again. Even if I don’t win in the US, I can do that and I will be getting to play in my first US major. In a worst-case scenario, that will be a learning experience.”

When he went into lockdown, MacIntyre was tantalisingly close to breaking into the world’s top 50. Due to the rankings having been up and running again on the PGA Tour as he was still in golfing lockdown along with most other Europeans, he is starting back to work in 81st spot.

“I have been keeping an eye on the world rankings as that’s part of my job,” he admitted. “It was always going to be a freefall for me when other people were playing in big events as I waited to get my chance. It’s the same as last year. If I play good golf, that will take care of itself. The top 50 is still not far away and one good event out here could do the trick.”

While the aforementioned DeChambeau, pictured left, piled on the pounds in lockdown, MacIntyre did exactly the opposite. “I’ve lost over a stone and feel so much better for it,” he declared. “To be honest, it was something I’d initially planned to do over Christmas, but doing something like that around that time of year is not so easy.

“I then said to Greg (Milne, his caddie) in Qatar that I was going to get fitter. My dad Dougie, who had been on a strict diet, was lighter than me and I said to myself, ‘that can’t happen!’ So I’ve lost over a stone, but that’s as much as I want to lose as the next step will be to do some gym work.”

On his last visit to LA to play in the 2017 Walker Cup, MacIntyre enjoyed taking in all the sights in the southern California city, but this trip was mainly spent behind closed doors. “We spent the two weeks in a nice house where we were hidden away from the world,” he said of his quarantine spell there along with Milne.

“We are both scared of catching the virus, so we didn’t do much at all in our time there. We basically hid in the house for two weeks before I had a fitting at the TaylorMade Kingdom in Carlsbad then I started playing a bit late last week and it was good to get out of the house for a bit.

“The hardest part of being out here so far was the journey from LA to Memphis. In the airport and aeroplanes, I just don’t feel comfortable at the moment as people are getting too close. Back in Oban, everyone seems to be sticking to the social distancing, but in big cities over here they don’t seem to be as worried about it as a small town in the west of Scotland.”

A large number of people in that small town will be excited to see the local hero back at the coalface this week. He was late in starting his 2020 campaign due to a niggling wrist injury and had only really figured out a way to combat that with his coach, Davy Burns, when the world went into lockdown.

“I think it is cleared up,” he said of that problem, which really flared up towards the end of last season as he was vying for the Rookie of the Year title. “The most I have practised was at the TaylorMade fitting out here last week. I put in a long shift and it feels fine. In lockdown, I had another eight weeks when I didn’t touch a club.”

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